the name game.

this post is written in response to all the comments posted on my facebook status update about our struggle to find the "perfect" name for baby number three...

every couple has their own "method", i'm sure. picking a name for your unborn baby is part of the exhilarating process of that nine month wait. it's a process, with many automatic rejections ("are you serious?" usually follows the suggestion), some "hmmm, that could be a possibility" type reactions and hopefully, just a few favorites. the process has been pretty simple for my husband and me. up until now, that is. we cannot agree on a baby girl name for this little one growing inside me. and, with only ten weeks to go, time is definitely not on our side.

of course, at the twenty-ish week ultrasound (ours was actually at twenty four weeks), we chose NOT to find out the gender of this baby so we don't really know if we need to have a girl's name. but on the fifty percent chance that we'll be adding another baby girl to the anaya family, obviously, we want to be prepared.

so...we search. or, more accurately, i search. i scour websites and books, scribbling possibilities on post-it notes and in the margins of my calendar. my eyes silently glide pages and pages of baby photographer websites and blog posts. then, i gather my lists and match the names up with their meanings. the meaning of the name is very important to us. if we don't like the meaning, it won't even be considered. most often, finding out the meaning to a certain name will decide if it makes it onto "the list". this list is the list that john sees. he reads through them and i know that he might like only one, if any, of the dozen or so written down. so far, he's only okay-ed one name and it wasn't a joyous "i love it!" type reaction. it was more like, "hmmm. that one's okay".

so...i start the process over again. and again. and again.

i've thought back through books that i've loved as a child: little house on the prairie, caddie woodlawn, anne of green gables, the meet the austin's series, ramona ... the list goes on and on.

i've also read through baby names books...which is an eye-straining experience, to be sure. mind boggling as well.

with our first pregnancy, it was easy. we had the name elijah (meaning: the Lord is God) johnathon (meaning: gift of God; also to include john's name) picked out before we were even married. it was a God given name that we both loved and were excited to give to our son. though we found out the gender of our first baby, we thought it would be a good idea to have a girl name just in case the ultrasound was wrong. so...we came up with lucy (light) kate (pure; and also to include my name) almost immediately. when the second baby came along, we decided we wanted the gender to be a surprise. we already had lucy kate picked out so we only had to come up with a boy's name. it's actually a pretty humorous story of how we landed on ezekiel (meaning: the strength of God) mckinley (meaning: learned ruler; and mainly, to pay homage to my alaskan heritage). john actually came up with it one sunday morning during church. he was supposed to be finding a scripture reference in proverbs but instead, elbowed me with obvious excitement, telling me that because he'd turned to ezekiel three times in a row instead of proverbs, it was a sign from God that we should name our next son ezekiel. insert a picture me rolling my eyes into this segment of the story. i muttered something about the fact that the book of ezekiel is pretty much in the exact center of the Bible so it's not really that surprising that turned there three times in a row and that he should really be paying attention to the sermon. instead of finding the proverbs reference however, john proceeded to read the entire book of ezekiel (not entirely in the service, he read it over the course of the day. but he never did engage with the sermon after that). he was SO convinced that our baby was a boy and that God had given him the baby's name right there in the middle of the nine o'clock service. i took a while longer to convince but the name slowly grew on me...especially when we paired it with mckinley. well...obviously, we did NOT bring ezekiel mckinley anaya home with us from the hospital that may day...it was lucy kate that accompanied us. and what a perfect fit that name is for our little girl. when you put the two names together with their meanings, it creates the phrase "pure light". lucy is definitely that for our wee family. she is a sweet little lightbulb, brightening our days with her endless smile.

needless to say, if this baby is a boy, his name will be ezekiel. however, in the girl name department,
i am seriously about to give up.

it's at this point though, i am reminded that i didn't name elijah and lucy...God did. and i'm not in charge of finding the perfect name for this child either. God already knows who is growing inside me! He knows not only whether this baby is a boy or a girl, but He knows the day they will speak their first word, He knows when they will loose their first tooth and He knows the exact hour they will experience their first kiss, their first day of college, their first true heartbreak.

He knows.

and i don't have to.

ah...the blessed peace in those words: He knows!

i will, of course, continue to search but will preface my search with prayers. prayers not only for the name God wants us to bestow upon this little one but that i would be worthy of this precious blessing coming so soon to our family!

i'll keep you posted...